Cuero, Texas

Everything Cuero is known for

2 songs mention this city 1 artist from here

Music in Cuero

Songs About Cuero

Chupacabra
Randy Rogers Band & La Maquinaria Norteña
50%
"Outside of Cuero"
gadalupe days
gary p. nunn
10%

Artists From Cuero

M
Mitchell Crain
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Cuero

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Cuero.

Guadalupe River 17 songs U.S. Route 59 9 songs San Antonio River 2 songs Interstate 10 36 songs US Route 90 9 songs

Musical Heritage

Cuero's Hitmaking Son, Sam Neely RoadyGoat

Cuero's contribution to the radio dial was a singer-songwriter named Sam Neely, born here on August 22, 1948. He picked up a guitar at age ten before his family moved down to Corpus Christi, where he started playing in bands and worked his way onto national TV with an appearance on The Merv Griffin Show in 1968. Neely landed several charting country and pop hits across the 1970s, including Loving You Just Crossed My Mind, Rosalie, and You Can Have Her, recording for labels like MCA, Capitol, A&M, and Elektra. His most-heard performance, though, came at the very end of one of the biggest nights in television history: Neely sang The Party's Over, the farewell number on the 1983 series finale of MASH, watched by one of the largest audiences ever to tune in to a single broadcast. He was honored on the South Texas Music Walk of Fame in 2005 and died in 2006. The voice on that famous goodbye got its start in a turkey town in DeWitt County. (Source: Sam Neely biography.)

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History of Cuero

Where the Chisholm Trail Cattle Drives Began RoadyGoat

Before Cuero was even a town, this stretch of DeWitt County was a starting gate for one of the great Texas cattle drives. On April 1, 1866, a herd of roughly 1,800 rangy Longhorns gathered at Cardwell Flats near here and pointed north. Crockett Cardwell, who ran a trading post and stage stop, had rounded up the cattle; Thornton Chisholm of DeWitt County rode as trail boss, with a crew of about 30 cowboys driving the herd. It took them seven hard months to reach the railhead at St. Joseph, Missouri, blazing one of the earliest routes that fed into what became the famous Chisholm Trail. Over the following two decades, millions of Texas cattle would walk north to Kansas and Missouri markets along trails like this one. Cuero leaned into that heritage: the Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum at 302 North Esplanade Street, housed in the restored 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, tells the story of the drovers who left from right here. (Source: Texas historical marker; Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum.)

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Ruby Begonia and the Great Gobbler Gallop RoadyGoat

Two American towns claim to be the Turkey Capital of the World, and rather than sue each other, they settled it with a turkey race. The feud is with Worthington, Minnesota, whose own turkey festival dates to 1938. After a Worthington newspaper editor insisted his town held the real title, Cuero answered with the Great Gobbler Gallop, run since the 1970s as part of the annual Turkeyfest. Cuero's racing turkey is named Ruby Begonia; Worthington's is Paycheck. The two birds run in two heats, one in each town, and the fastest combined time wins the title plus a trophy with the magnificent name the Traveling Turkey Trophy of Tumultuous Triumph. The loser is consoled with the Circulating Consolation Cup of Consummate Commiseration. Cuero's heat sprints down the intersection of Main Street and Esplanade on the Saturday morning of Turkeyfest, usually in October, with crowds cheering a bird that has no idea a civic rivalry rides on its drumsticks. It is exactly as absurd, and exactly as beloved, as it sounds. (Source: Cuero Turkeyfest.)

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The Longest Feud in Texas History RoadyGoat

DeWitt County was the stage for what historians call the longest and bloodiest blood feud in Texas history. The Sutton-Taylor feud erupted in March 1868, when deputy William Sutton killed a member of the Taylor family. The killings multiplied from there into a grinding cycle of ambushes and reprisals between the Sutton and Taylor factions that pulled in the Texas State Police, Texas Rangers, and even the young gunman John Wesley Hardin, who married into the Taylor side. Before it burned out, the feud cost at least 35 lives over nearly a decade. It even reached the coast: when an Indianola courtroom filled for a feud-related trial in September 1875, the crowd was caught there by the hurricane that helped destroy that port. The fighting finally ended around 1876, when Texas Ranger captain Jesse Lee Hall led a force into Cuero and broke the factions apart. The county courthouse and old jail in Cuero stand at the center of the country where it all played out. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

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Benavidez, Raul Perez [Roy]

1968

Medal of Honor recipient Roy Benavidez was born Raul Perez Benavidez at Cuero, Texas, August 5, 1935. His father was Salvador Benavidez, a Mexican American, and his mother was Teresa Perez, an American Yaqui Indian. Raul's parents died when he was a child, and he and his younger brother were then raised by their Uncle Nicholas and Aunt Alexandria at El Campo, Texas. He dropped out of school during the seventh grade and enlisted in the Texas National Guard at age seventeen. At nineteen he joined the Regular Army as Roy Perez Benavidez and got his infantry training at Fort Ord, California. By 1958 he had served in South Korea and Germany. Returning to the United States he married a childhood sweetheart, Lala Coy on June 7, 1959. They had three children. In 1959 he attended military police school at Fort Gordon, Georgia. He was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division and in 1965 was in Vietnam as a military adviser to the Vietnamese Army. While on patrol he was badly wounded after stepping on a land mine and was evacuated to Brooke Army Hospital in San Antonio, with serious bone and cartilage damage to his spine. After a long period of treatment and rehabilitation he volunteered for a second tour in Vietnam, this time in the Special Forces as a Green Beret. On the morning of May 2, 1968, Sergeant Benavidez was in the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh, when rescue helicopters returned from Cambodia after an unsuccessful attempt to extract a Special Forces team. Benavidez volunteered for another rescue attempt, an event that would become "six hours in hell" in his own words. Reaching the pick-up zone, Sergeant Benavidez jumped from the helicopter and ran about eighty yards through withering fire to the embattled team. He was wounded in the right leg, face, and head. In spite of his injuries he directed the landing of the extraction helicopter and assisted in the loading of dead and wounded team members, and he then proceeded to collect classified papers and a radio from the dead team leader. During this action he continued to receive wounds from small arms fire and shrapnel. When the chopper pilot was shot and the rescue helicopter crashed Benavidez assisted the wounded and dazed men out of the overturned machine, and facing increasing enemy opposition, he called in tactical air strikes and directed supporting gunfire to attempt another rescue. He then began assisting the wounded aboard another helicopter. He sustained more injuries during hand-to-hand combat with an enemy soldier and also killed two others during the frantic rush to secure all the wounded. Benavidez received a total of seven bullet wounds to his legs and torso as well as numerous other bayonet and shrapnel cuts. His brave and decisive actions during the rescue attempt resulted in saving at least eight soldiers. He received four Purple Hearts and the Distinguished Service Cross. He was released from the hospital in 1969 after a year of intensive medical treatment and therapy and was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1972 he was transferred to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where he served out the duration of his military career until his retirement on September 10, 1976. The unselfish devotion of Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez to his comrades, and to his country, was deserving of the Medal of Honor. Many of his comrades thought the recommendation for the MOH was submitted, but the award was not made at that time. Efforts were made on his behalf, sufficient witnesses were finally located, and the award was presented on February 24, 1981, by President Reagan, in the White House. Because this action, for which the award was made, took place in Cambodia, there has been some speculation that political embarrassment may have contributed to the delay. Benavidez retired with total disability from the United States Army in 1976 and moved to El Campo, Texas. After being notified in 1983 that his disability was being questioned by the Social Security Administration, he bec

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Sutton-Taylor Feud

1868

The Sutton-Taylor Feud, centered in DeWitt County, was the bloodiest and longest-running feud in Texas history, lasting from 1868 to 1899 and claiming dozens of lives.

Historical Marker →

Harmon, Leonard Roy

1942

Born in Cuero, Leonard Roy Harmon enlisted in the U.S. Navy in Houston in June 1939. After training in Norfolk, Virginia, he reported for duty on the cruiser "U.S.S. San Francisco" and advanced to mess attendant first class. During the World War II Battle of Guadalcanal, on November 12, 1942, a Japanese plane crashed into the radar and fire control station of the "San Francisco," causing 50 casualties. The following day, November 13, as the naval battle continued, several officers on the bridge were struck by enemy gunfire. Harmon rushed to help evacuate the wounded to a dressing station. He was killed as he shielded an injured shipmate from gunfire. For this act of extraordinary heroism, he was awarded the Navy Cross. On May 21, 1943, Frank Knox, secretary of the Navy, announced the naming of a Navy vessel in Harmon's honor. The first U.S. warship named for a black man, the destroyer escort "U.S.S. Harmon" was christened by Mrs. Naunita Harmon Carroll, Harmon's mother, and launched on July 25, 1943. The vessel received three battle stars for service in the Pacific during World War II. In 1975, as a further memorial, the bachelor enlisted quarters at the U.S. Naval Air Station, North Island, California, was named Harmon Hall.

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Chisholm Trail, Old

1866

From site near here, 1800 Longhorns were moved out April 1, 1866, on first trail drive from this area to northern markets. Crockett Cardwell, owner of cattle bedground, had gathered the herd. The trail boss was Thornton Chisholm, a native of DeWitt County. Indian Scout Jesse Chisholm in 1865 had marked the upper trail from the North Canadian to the Arkansas River. Road here became a prong of the famous ChisholmTtrail, going past Gonzales, San Marcos, Austin, Round Rock, Georgetown, Gatesville, Glen Rose and Red River Station, into Indian territory. The 30 men of this 1866 drive to St. Joseph, Mo., were gone 7 months, 10 days. The cook and many of the men made numerous later drives; but Thornton Chisholm died in 1868. 260,000 cattle - accumulated in Texas in 4 years of Civil War - went in 1866 up the Chisholm Trail, a flood channel from a vast reservoir of beef. Sold in northern markets or to the U.S. Government to feed Indians on reservations or soldiers in forts, the trailed cattle helped Texas recover from the war. From 1866 to 1895 at least 10,000,000 cattle were driven up the Chisholm Trail by courageous Texas cowboys - the greatest movement of animals under the control of men in all history.

Historical Marker →

Doehl, Katherine Mae [Kathy Dell]

1949

Kathy Dell, bandleader, musician, and rodeo star, was born Katherine Mae Doehl on July 9, 1932, in Cuero, Texas. She was the daughter of Walter and Willie Mae Doehl. Her father was a drummer in a municipal band in Cuero. Katherine Mae Doehl, called "Katie" as a teenager, later changing her name to Kathy Dell, was a popular fixture on rodeo and dance hall circuits in the crossroads region of South Texas. Dell's early influences were cowboy songs she heard on area radio broadcasts and in Hollywood Western movies, as well as records of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family that she played on the family Victrola. Among her favorite tunes was Patsy Montana's celebrated song, "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart." She taught herself to play guitar, and in 1949 when Dell was just a senior in high school, she began broadcasting her own show on Cuero's first commercial radio station, KCFH. "The Sweet Sixteen Singing Sweetheart of KCFH" performed a fifteen-minute broadcast before attending class at Cuero High School, where she also played French horn and trumpet in the school band. Dell adopted Montana's "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart," as her unofficial anthem, a song she continued to perform throughout her career. After graduating high school, she continued her Liberty Jamboree program on KCFH, and she took a job as a taxi driver. In 1950 she made her television debut on Red River Dave McEnery 's live music program on WOAI in San Antonio. Dell also joined the All Girls Pro-Rodeo Circuit, where she trick-roped and rode bulls and broncos and toured across the Southwest United States ( see WOMEN'S PROFESSIONAL RODEO ASSOCIATION ). In 1952 she won second place in the All Girls Bull Riding Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dell's good friend and mentor Lucyle Cowey was a fellow Cuero resident, rodeo champion, and Wild West show star, and the two performed at shows and rodeos at area ranches. Dell became a local radio celebrity, yodeling and singing western hits on radio programs and performing in front of larger audiences as a guest singer with area bands. She sang with the Austin-based Colorado River Boys and then with the honky-tonk group the Southernaires in Cuero. In 1956 Dell formed her first band, the Square D Ranch Hands, which soon included guitar player and lifelong close friend Johnny Naunheim. Other early members included fiddler Ed Kinney, bassist Ellis Fellers, and Vernon Whitehead on steel guitar. The Square D Ranch Hands performed at dance halls and events throughout the region, with Dell sometimes enjoying the opportunity to share the stage with high-profile artists, among them Bob Wills and Willie Nelson. In 1969 Dell and Naunheim formed a new group known as Kathy Dell with the Country Kings. Dell was considered a pioneer, one of few women at the time who "formed and managed her own country music groups, booked all their jobs, fronted the bands, drove the tour bus, sewed most of the stage costumes, played guitar, and sang the majority of the band's songs." Throughout her performance career, she also worked as manager of the Cuero Music Company, as well as manager of a local western store. In 1969 Dell and Haunheim released a single on Brazos Records, a small San Antonio label. The 45 rpm featured a country standard, "You've Still Got a Place in My Heart," and a composition by Naunheim called "Footprints on the Moon." In late 1974 she recorded with the Cherokee Cowboys at a studio in Beeville. The resulting single, "It's Over," got regional airplay and was a popular request at dances. In 1976 Dell started a new band, Rawhide, and began to feature Tejano songs and influences in her performances in addition to her set of favorite country and rock hits. With their diverse and dance-friendly material, Rawhide gained in popularity and performed at events and parties throughout the Mexican-American community. With a career spanning four decades, Kathy Dell performed throughout South Texas until the mid-1990s. A career highlight

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Clinton, TX (DeWitt County)

1868

Clinton, former county seat of DeWitt County, was located on the west bank of the Guadalupe River five miles southwest of the site of present Cuero. The first settlers of the area were members of DeWitt's colony ; the Richard Chisholm family settled in January 1829 and the Andrew Lockhart family later that March. The town gained notoriety during the Sutton-Taylor feud . Life in this area was rugged and perilous, despite DeWitt's settlements to the north and De León's colony to the southeast. In the fall of 1829 Comanches kidnapped young Matilda Lockhart and three visiting companions as the children were gathering pecans in the Guadalupe riverbottom. The Lockhart girl was rescued, but she died from the effects of the ordeal; the other three children were never found. About 1839 Richard Chisholm began operating a ferry across the Guadalupe River about 3½ miles below the confluence of the river and Sandies Creek. He soon opened a store and a horse-driven gristmill that was used by settlers from as far away as Meyersville. Clinton was not established until after the organization of DeWitt County on March 24, 1846. Chisholm, eager to have the new county seat located on his land, deeded 640 acres to friends with instructions to survey the land and try to induce the commissioners, among them Daniel Boone Friar , to accommodate his wishes. James Norman Smith surveyed the townsite, which was named Clinton in honor of the son of the empresario Green DeWitt . Yet Chisholm's friends would not grant the commissioners the added land required for a county seat; instead Cameron, on the J. J. Tumlinson survey east of the Guadalupe River, became county seat. As Clinton grew rapidly, its citizens contested the Cameron decision. Each town became county seat alternately several times, the last change being the result of an election in August 1850, which finally made Clinton the seat of government. Clinton prospered. Court was held in a log house until a log courthouse was built at a cost of $400 in 1852. A frame building was erected in 1855 and followed by a two-story courthouse in 1858. The latter, insured for $8,000, was Clinton's last courthouse; it was moved to Cuero in 1876 when that town became county seat. William Cochran Blair organized Clinton's first church, Live Oak Presbyterian, in July 1849. Clinton Methodists organized in the 1850s. Both denominations held services in the log courthouse until 1856, when the Presbyterians built a church that they shared with the Methodists. Clinton had no school until about 1855, when Rev. and Mrs. James M. Connelly held classes as part of their Presbyterian ministry. During the Civil War years Viola Case moved her Victoria Female Academy to Clinton when Victoria was threatened by Union invasion. Public school instruction began in the 1870s. The county's earliest Masonic lodge was established at Clinton; a two-story hall was built in 1852, to which the Cameron lodge then moved. Clinton's first hotel was a log house with outside dining facilities. A later two-story frame hotel had a reputation for its fresh oysters. Jesse O. Wheeler of Victoria operated a branch store at Clinton that achieved sales of $12,000 and $18,000 in 1850 and 1851 respectively. Among the town's lawyers were Henry Clay Pleasants and John W. Stayton . The Clinton post office was established in October 1849. William Read Scurry of Clinton, with Fielding Jones of Victoria, represented the Victoria district in the Secession Convention (1861). During the Civil War William J. Weisiger organized a company at Clinton, which later fought with George H. Giddings 's cavalry battalion in the Rio Grande area. During Reconstruction Clinton and other surrounding towns were occupied by troops based at Victoria. The traditional interpretation says that bad times following the war contributed to the notorious Sutton-Taylor feud, which originated in Clinton on Christmas Eve 1868, when Bill Sutton killed William "Buck" Taylor. The family feud

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Things to Do in Cuero

spooky 15.5 mi away
Yorktown Memorial Hospital

Abandoned since 1988 this former hospital in Yorktown is one of the most investigated paranormal sites in Texas. Over 2000 patients died here. Shadow figures…
quirky 23.3 mi away
When Hippies Discovered Shiner Beer

For its first 60 years Shiner Beer barely left the county. Then in the 1970s something unexpected happened. At the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin an…
historical 23.4 mi away
The Only Female Brewery Owner in America

When Kosmos Spoetzl died in 1950 his daughter Cecile -- known as Miss Celie -- took over the brewery. She became the only female brewery owner in the entire…
historical 23.4 mi away
The Brewmaster from Egypt

Kosmos Spoetzl took one of the strangest paths to small-town Texas. Born in Bavaria he trained at brewmaster school in Germany then spent eight years brewing…
quirky 23.5 mi away
The Beer That Tasted Like Medicine

In 1909 a group of homesick German and Czech farmers in tiny Shiner Texas pooled their money built a ramshackle brewery and tried to make beer that reminded…
food 23.8 mi away
Spoetzl Brewery

Home of Shiner beer since 1909. Free tours and tastings in tiny Shiner Texas.
spooky 0.6 mi away
The Chupacabra of Central Texas

Since the 1990s ranchers across central Texas have reported a hairless fanged creature draining the blood of goats and chickens. Cuero Texas declared itself…
quirky 23.3 mi away
The Shiner Hobo Band

After World War I the town of Shiner did what any proud small Texas town would do -- it formed a band. But not just any band. The Shiner Hobo Band dressed in…

Sports in Cuero

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 4A · Football · 2018

Cuero Gobblers — 2018 UIL 4A Division 2 Football State Champions

Most recent: 40-28 over Texarkana Pleasant Grove · 2018 4A Division 2 final

Cuero High School, a respected presence in Texas 4A football, holds a significant place in the state's athletic landscape. The Gobblers have consistently showcased their competitive spirit on the field, representing their community with pride and determination. Their program is a source of local enthusiasm, drawing support from across the region.

The school's athletic tradition includes developing talent that progresses to higher levels of competition. One notable alumnus, Jordan Whittington, advanced to major college football, reflecting the caliber of athletes fostered within the Cuero program. The community celebrates these achievements as part of its rich sports heritage.

State titles
2018
Most recent
2018, 40-28
Class
4A
Key Players
  • Jordan Whittington — , NFL player and former wide receiver for the Texas Longhorns
The moment

The Cuero Gobblers secured the 2018 4A Division 2 State Championship by defeating Texarkana Pleasant Grove with a score of 40-28.

Sources: Wikipedia · UIL State Championship Archives · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Cuero

253 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Cuero on the Map
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